


Set Fire to Our Bed

by Smiling_Penelope



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alina's powers remain whole, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Hate Sex, If by working you mean constantly fighting, Sort Of, Spoilers for R&R for sure- continue reading tags at your own risk, The Darkling lives and they are 'working' together, lots of hate sex, oh and
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-23
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-01-04 13:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12170298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiling_Penelope/pseuds/Smiling_Penelope
Summary: Two hundred years has done nothing to make their balance anything but a war. They may be working together for Ravka, but it is a different story behind the closed doors of their minds.(AKA The sun summoner has a bit of a problem when she… *ahem*)





	1. You Hit Me Once

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by Florence + The Machine's song
> 
>  
> 
> [Kiss With A Fist](https://youtu.be/1SmxVCM39j4)
> 
>  
> 
> .

_We were successful._

Alina’s stomach turned with dread. If she were 17 again, young and foolish, she might have been tricked into even a moment of excitement at the words. But she knew better now.

She had learned greatly in two centuries.

He had seen to that, like he had so much else.

_Chernast and Ulensk have been secured and Halmhend has been taken as well. Only 543 First Army soldiers were lost with an additional 179 casualties. No Second Army soldiers were harmed._

The edges of the page started to warp in her hands. If she wasn’t careful the paper would start to smolder and burn as her anger turned her hands hot with light.

If the letter had been penned by any other hand she knew she would have frowned for only a moment and quickly issued the needed orders, even if the casualties were twice what they were. Her usual tight mask of calm indifference was cracking.

_Only._

She stared at the teardrop shape the ‘o’ made, the slightly exaggerated stroke of the ‘n’, the way the pen had dug into the paper at the top of the ‘l’, and finally the elegant curl of the ‘y’. A flourish that would be there no matter how hastily he wrote.

_Only._

The word slashed its way through her heart as if he had carved it there himself.

To him the First Army soldiers would always just be expendable otkazat'sya. Pawns for him to place in front of his treasured grisha. But to Alina they were equally precious. Each one was somebody. A son or a daughter, a friend, a lover, a brother or a sister, a cousin, an acquaintance, a bunkmate, an aunt or an uncle. Or maybe even a father or a mother if they had ever found the time in their short lives.

Alina didn’t know them beyond their numbers, but each of their deaths weighed on her. She wove them into the ever present shroud of grief that she wore for an otkazat’sya boy she had lost so long ago.

A delicate curl of smoke rose from the paper and filled her nose.

Alina had found that she could easily wear his presence, his poise, his authority in most any other circumstance with ease. It was easy, comfortable even. A second skin made of stronger stuff than her actual self.

However, that was all but lost when it came to the man himself. There was no protection from him, no shield nor defense.

There was only their tether, constantly thrumming with everything between them that was rarely said.

Alina’s only solace was that he was laid bare as well. More open to her than he would ever feel comfortable with. She could feel him even now as if he stood right next to her when there were countless miles between them.

He was… bored, as he so often was, but he was also pleased. It rested at the back of his mind, piled under the many things that required his attention. The feeling was rare for him, Alina knew, and it was purposefully set aside so that she would not notice it unless she was looking.

Flames licked their way up the page.

The courier who had delivered the letter paled before her, but she didn’t turn away. Most soldiers would have backed away the moment heat started to radiate off of Alina like a furnace. But this one was stronger than most, even as sweat started to bead on her brow.

She had dark hair, deep blue eyes, and a defiant tilt to her chin. She reminded Alina of a woman she had known, almost considered a friend, a few lifetimes ago. Not as pretty though. Never as pretty.

“You may go.” Alina didn’t bother to look at the soldier as she spoke with the last vestiges of calm that she had.

The moment she was gone, Alina traversed across the tether. Hurtled along it until she stood directly in front of him.

The Darkling.

His slate grey eyes revealed no emotion or shock at her arrival, but she could feel the way his boredom shrunk back before her.

Judging by the murmured sounds around her he was in some sort of meeting. Talking with people who would never see anything other than what he chose to show them. Who would never see her. It was perfect. Alina had the time it took for him to dismiss them to do anything that she wanted.

Her hand rose in the air and arched with her wrist. She could feel the grim anticipation that curled in his stomach and reveled in it.

They both knew what was about to happen and in that moment he was defenseless to her wrath. Alina’s slender hand flew through the air at full force and when it connected with his face she flicked her wrist to increase the force of the blow.

His neck muscles had tightened in preparation and he let the curve of her hand turn his head ever so slightly. To everyone else it would look like something in the room had caught his attention. No one else would see the red glow of her hand print on his perfect face.

She had expected anger or frustration at her intrusive attack. Instead the pleasure that he had carefully kept from her attention spiked the moment her fingertips touched down on his cheekbone.

He had expected this, had even looked forward to it.

The realization turned Alina’s stomach and suddenly there was no pride in her violent revenge, only a sickening guilt. She was 17 again. Inevitably falling into into one of his little traps that he set up with such ease.

He nodded a dismissal the people around him, but Alina didn’t want to be alone with him. Because when she was the world always seemed to tilt. She did and said things that she never intended.

She felt things too. Shameful things that made her want to crawl back into herself and cling to who she never truly was, but always wanted to be.

So she couldn’t stay here a moment longer or she would find herself sprawled on the table behind her. Maps shifting and crinkling as he moved above her and she moved below him.

The Darkling’s eyes darkened with the desire that he must feel coming from her. They were like two mirrors faced towards each other, reverberating and intensifying what was between them infinitely.

He took a predatory step towards her and she could see how it would all play out. She would reach for him first, hands dragging him into her by his kefta. He would be at her neck in an instant, nipping his way along it from jaw to shoulder. It would be too much and not enough all at once, and she would be forced to pull at him so that his lips rested on hers instead.

His hands, stained with an invisible sea of blood, would reach around her possessively, griping her hips tightly enough for slender bruises to form. Then one would shift downwards, pulling at her own kefta until she could feel the roughness of his palm against her.

All the while, their mouths would be locked in a constant struggle. A war neither of them could win, yet both somehow did.

When his finger inevitably curled into her she would gasp and shudder at the touch. His pleasure at the power he still held over her would be a strong punch to her stomach. Reflexively her teeth would find his lower lip and she would bite hard enough to draw blood.

And then with a growl, he would be lifting her onto the table and pushing into her.

And then…

Then she would have truly fallen into his trap.

He had already gotten a reaction out of her. She had dropped everything the moment she had received that letter and then she had run straight to him, allowing him to see the very moment that she snapped under the weight of what she felt for him.

He wasn’t going to get her body and pleasure as well.

“Never _only_.” She managed to bite out before she severed their tether.

She was alone in her tent, body aching with want, the letter only glowing ash in the air.

“Never.” She whispered to herself, not knowing if she truly believed it herself anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be a mini series of about 3ish chapters probably no more than 5000 words by the time it's done. :)
> 
> I reaalllyyy hope that this was not completely cringe worthy. I'm honestly partially writing it for smut practice.
> 
> ...Good lord what have I done/become?


	2. I Hit You Back

She took a piece of him that day in the chapel, but she had to give a piece of herself to do so. And for better or worse, neither of them could take it back.

Aleksander twirled his fingers in the sun absentmindedly. Soft wisps of light collected there and weaved themselves together to form a small glowing sphere.

Of all of the things he knew about the small science and all of the things he had wanted from his sun summoner, he had never thought to dream of this.

He also hadn’t thought that the light would feel as familiar to him as the shadows.

He knew that Alina felt the same way even if she never played with her own shadows. He could tell that she wanted to. When they would rest in bed, panting, bruised, and exhausted he would trail little patterns of light across her skin. And he could feel the way she yearned to make the shadows move across him.

But she never did.

She was still too ashamed. Even after a few hundred years, Alina still felt guilty about the connection that they shared. She had the unreasonable idea that she could rise above it, rise above him. So every time they came together she felt like she had lost yet another battle in their eternal war.

But Aleksander didn’t see it that way. Every touch, every kiss, every breath they exchanged was a boundless victory to him. A shared victory.

Neither of them should be and yet they were.

Aleksander knew Alina much better than she knew herself. She may fight against their bond forever, railing at him over his perceived cruelty until her voice gave out, but at the end of everything he would still be there. Connected to her.

There was no darkness without light.

No light without darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~

She had rerouted the Second Army’s supplies again.

Aleksander had to work to suppress a sigh. There was no external trace of his irritation, his face a carefully schooled mask, but it still took more effort than it usually did.

He would never understand Alina’s fascination and fondness for the otkazat'sya soldiers. At times she even favored them over her own kind.

Like now. She had gone behind his back to redistribute supplies to the First Army. Precious grisha steel and Materialki corecloth wasted on ingrates, content to enjoy the products of a people that they feared and reviled.

Aleksander dismissed the oprichniki who had given him the report with a wave of his hand and once the soldier was gone he allowed a faint shadow of a frown rest on his face.

This was Alina’s retaliation for the First Army casualties to regain Ravkan land and push into Fjerda as well. And it wasn’t a trifle one.

It had taken a small fortune and countless hours to gather those supplies. Even still, there had been barely enough to outfit the grisha commanders. It was such a waste to use those precious materials on bodies that would most likely be lost within the season. But that hadn’t stopped Alina from giving them to front-line otkazat'sya soldiers.

Aleksander surveyed a large map of the continent splayed out on a thick table. It was littered with annotations and small pieces of wood that represented soldiers and supplies. In an hour he would be meeting with his war council to for more updates and decision making.

It would be the perfect time to plot his own retaliation.

He made a few more notes on the map and shifted a couple of the wooden placeholders, but something felt off to Aleksander. There was a restlessness curling in his stomach. Whatever he planned now wouldn’t take effect for at least a month and it could be even longer until word reached Alina.

Almost unconsciously, Aleksander reached a tentative hand across their tether. He wanted to know what she was feeling. Would it be pride in her actions? Or a growing guilt maybe, in the time that it had taken for him to receive the news.

He found both in her. A tangled mess of guilt and pride that was so inherently Alina that Aleksander wondered why he would ever expect one over the other.

He took a deep breath as he let her emotions roll over him. There was anger there as well. Strong and bitter, like a slap to the face. Under that was a thick, warm layer of fondness for her soldiers, but it was also laced with sickly tinges of concern. Her sorrow was there as well, like a deep pool of water that had frosted over.

The complex layering of her emotions was an intoxicating thing to shift through. Aleksander had spent more time eternal and separate than he had finite and human. It hadn’t taken long for his emotions, good and bad, to become dull and muted. But that hadn’t been the case for Alina. She still felt things and felt them strongly.

And now he could feel them through her.

His Sun Summoner had brought him so many unexpected gifts, even while she twisted a knife in his chest.

“Aleksander,” She sighed across their bond to him, “I know you’re there.”

He was caught in the act, but he moved forward instead of retreating backwards. He could see her now, back turned to him, and he padded up behind her.

Alina had taken to growing out her snow white hair in the last century. When it was fully down it just reached the base of her spine. If she tilted her head back it would cascade over her thighs. Right now it was braided into a simple, but thick, plait that he pushed aside so he could press kisses into the back of her neck.

His lips trailed along the collar of bone he had held around her where a brilliant man whose name he had long forgotten welded it forever in place.

“Aleksander, I can’t right now. I’m busy.” Alina hissed at him in a way he could only hear. But at the same time she objected, she also arched her neck slightly allowing him greater access and breathed into his embrace.

He ignored her voiced protests, instead letting his hands roam lazily across her front. One worked its way up and the other down until they rested on places that made Alina bite back a moan.

“Leave me now.” She ordered, but she wasn’t talking to him. There was a faint shuffle of people being dismissed and then Alina was twisting in his arms.

Her mouth found his in a biting, bruising kiss. Aleksander bit back, catching her lush lower lip in between his teeth creating a sound in Alina’s throat between a growl and a moan.

Her hands fisted in the front of his kefta as she tried to pull him closer. Aleksander responded by placing two hands on the back of her thighs and lifting her into him.

He loved the way her ankles locked together at the small of his back, like she was making sure he wasn’t going anywhere.

But this was a retaliation, not a reward, and Aleksander had no intention of letting Alina have her way with him.

He broke away from her mouth and trailed his way back to her throat and then her chest. He left aching bruises on any piece of exposed skin he could find, pushing at the neckline of her kefta where he needed to.

Aleksander turned Alina into a shivering mess, molted with deep purple shadows. He pushed her until she was sobbing his name into his ear, begging for more than just his kisses.

And then he set her down suddenly and snapped his way back across the tether. He left her alone, confused, and wanting.

His body still ached for hers as well, but at least he knew that she ached more. It took some time for his anatomy to settle down, but he was ready by the time the war meeting started, his advisors none the wiser.

Through the entire meeting he could feel Alina at the back of his mind, frustrated as she tried to finish what he started with only her lonely hand to help her.


	3. So We Remain the Same

He had taken so many things from her. But the fact that he couldn’t take her first, couldn’t be her only, always comforted her. Especially because some days she wondered how much more of her he would own if he had.

~ ~ ~ ~

Pain.

It bloomed in Alina’s chest, raging through her lungs as she fought to breathe. It seared and burned and consumed her. She was doubled over with it as if she was bowing to a higher power. And she supposed that she was.

_What is the point_ , Alina thought to herself distantly, _of being nearly immortal if pain is always so arresting every time?_

Another burst, this one lower down in her stomach, and Alina crumbled to the ground. Her face pressed against cool marble and it was almost soothing against the fire in her torso that threatened to devour her.

Or was the ground rough gravel? Scraping against her forehead as she turned her head?

Where was she?

It was like she was flowing between two places, back and forth with the tide. With one open of her eyes she was on the floor of the Little Palace foyer. She could see the swoop of the richly carved banister and the slight sway of the bright tapestries. Her eyes shut to blackness and when they opened again she was somewhere else. There were clouds of hazy dust punctuated with the sharp flashes of light. Something smelled acrid and sharp.

_Gunpowder._

In and out the two places swam before her eyes until slowly she started to drift closer to one than the other.

Her vision focused on the foyer with its calming marble floor.

“ _Alina.”_ Aleksander’s voice called out to her desperately.

But that didn’t make any sense. He didn’t _do_ desperate. And it had been weak too, almost inaudible.

Alina reached for their tether instinctively. She needed to know what was going on. What was happening? Why was she in so much pain?

Or was she? Alina was certainly sprawled on the ground, breathing hard, and slightly uncomfortable from the position. But the pain, that arresting pain, was no longer there.

She was groping in the darkness for their bond, but each time her hand found nothing. Alina was starting to panic. _Where is he?_

“Alina?” Somebody else was calling her name.

_Shut up._ She wanted to say. _I’m concentrating._

“Alina? Alina?!” It wasn’t just one voice, it was many. And there were hands too. She supposed that they belonged to the voices. They pressed against her, supporting her, searching along her body for some unknown wound.

“Moi Soverennyi? What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”

“She can’t breathe! Give her space!”

“Sankta!”

If the tether was still there, she couldn’t find it. Her stomach turned sour with mounting panic. Something had happened to Aleksander and she needed to know what, now.

“Off.” She commanded. “I’m fine. Prepare my horse.”

The people continued to crowd around her, each one insisting something of her. They wanted her to rest, to explain, to stay, to accept their help. But Alina didn’t care about what these people wanted. There was only one person who she cared about right now and they stood in the way of him.

She let her skin glow white hot and couldn’t even bring herself to feel guilt at the cries of pain she elicited.

“Now. We ride for the Darkling.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Alina rode harder than she ever had in her life. She didn’t stop, didn’t hesitate, for anything. Her attention was singular and focused. There wasn’t anything other than the feel of the saddle underneath her and the drive to go _faster_. She ignored the protests of her body just as readily as she ignored her people’s attempts to keep up with her. She didn’t even spare a thought for the poor beast that was spiriting her across the wilds of Ravka.

Alina had no idea how long it took to get to Sikursk, the last place he had reported from, only that it took too long. By the time that she got there the town was little more than a smoking pile of rubble.

The Shu Han. They had razed the place to the ground with weaponry that they shouldn’t have had access to. The type of firepower that they had needed could have only come from one place, Fjerda. And so Sikursk, the furthest outpost from Fjerda, hadn’t been prepared, not as much as it should have been.

Shu Han bullets wouldn’t be able to pierce Materialki corecloth, but there had been rumors of Fjerdan projectiles that could shred it like tissue paper.

_Where is he?_

The ruins were crawling with Shu Han soldiers. Men and woman. People.

Alina was wielding the light before she had even fully dismounted from her horse. And in the still quiet between two of her frantic heartbeats they were all gone. There was light and then there was nothing.

There had been no time for screams. No time for prayers. There hadn’t even been time for fear.

That was the Sun Summoner’s only pity, her only compassion while she killed every single one of them.

~ ~ ~ ~

The tether between her and Aleksander had become as much a part of Alina as her own hands or eyes. An aching shameful part, but a piece of her none the less. And without that tether Alina no longer felt whole. When had that happened? When had she started needed him to feel complete?

It took them a full day to search through the rubble. It took them much longer to put him back together.

Before the attack, there had many days spent wondering how much of her was Aleksander’s. She was always trying to draw lines in the sand between them. All the while he constantly crossed them or blurred them away. Alina spent so much time refusing him, pushing back, and even fighting for the sake of fighting, that she had completely missed the point.

It didn’t matter how much of her was Aleksander’s. What really mattered was how much of him was Alina’s. Especially when she was willing to kill for what was hers.

Alina smoothed Aleksander’s sweaty black hair away from his forehead as he slept. To everyone else she looked the picture concerned wife, forehead crinkled and eyes squinted with concern. But when she bent her head so that her worry-chapped lips were at his ear, she had no encouraging words of healing to give. She only had a terrible realization.

There had always been something between them, she knew that. But the names she had put to it- power, destiny, lust, hate, chemistry, fear- had never told the full story. There was a word that would be what most would think of first, especially naïve seventeen-year-old girls, but that word wouldn’t fit either.

What they had for each other wasn’t love, it was need.

Her whisper was harsh with sorrow and she wasn't sure what would be worse, if he heard her or if he didn't. “You once told me that wanting makes us weak. But now I know that needing makes us weaker.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this wasn't where I had expected this to go... Um, yeah. But I promise that the smut will be back in force full next chapter. I just felt like there needed a bit more foundation to the relationship first.
> 
> This was a bit rushed so if you find any typos please let me know. (And again, I'm sorry for the lack of smut in this chapter...)


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